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The NBA playoffs roll onward, without the Rockets. Of course Steph Curry waited to be injured until after the Rockets series, because that’s just the Curse of the Warriors on the Rockets. Well, the Rockets had to learn, and it was clear this was a team making its first playoff appearances against a team in its 29th playoff series in its current form.
Annoyingly, I’m not seeing any team remaining in the West that the Rockets couldn’t beat, and that includes OKC, who looks…a lot less special than their regular season would indicate. I think this is OKC’s Golden Year, they’d better do it this year, as all that depth is about to get expensive, or at worst, they’re making commitments to players longer term, which removes options on “lots of good players” rapidly.
The OKC problem is the Rockets problem on a lesser scale. That is, they and the Rockets have lots of good players, but only one great one (the Rockets lack a great one, so far, but if you want a player to be an offensive star, you actually have to run offense on a star basis for that player – more on that as the off season drags on). OKC’s vaunted shooting? Not around, by and large facing a tenacious D.
Tonight, however, we will see how some of Rafael Stone’s moves work out, as the Rockets will be stepping into the shoes of the Phoenix Suns. Does the Sun wear shoes? Greek sandals perhaps? Or is the sun in this game a phoenix? I’m never sure. At this point, Phoenix appears to be all ashes and no fire bird.
The chalk says the Rockets pick ninth, but if some odd stuff happens, there could be a coin flip and the Rockets would pick 10th. In a draft with four or five top prospects, and another 10-12 good starter prospects on top of that, that sounds fine.
The Rockets have a roughly 17% chance of landing a top four pick, which is a change from the previous odds model. The model is even flatter with regards to top picks, to discourage tanking. Which it has done to an extent, except for the teams that want to be bad enough to be guaranteed a top five pick.
The Rockets odds of a high pick are:
1st – 3.75%
2nd – 4.05%
3rd – 4.42%
4th – 4.86%
So as I understand it, the Rockets have a 17% shot of top four, and otherwise will be 9th or 10th, most likely 9th.
What say you?